February 2012
62 posts
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Obama to cut healthcare benefits for active duty...
Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. According to congressional assessments, a retired Army colonel with a family currently paying $460 a year for health care will pay $2,048. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon,...
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Facebook has denied allegations that its native...
An explosive report by The Sunday Times is alleging that Facebook can access user text messages from the Android version of the social networking app. The report claimed that the Android Facebook was accessing users’ text messages “as part of a trial to launch its own messaging service.” claimed that the Android Facebook was accessing users’ text messages “as part...
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Dad arrested after daughter draws picture of gun
A Canadian father was arrested and strip-searched Wednesday after his 4-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun in her kindergarten class. “From a public safety point of view, any child drawing a picture of guns and saying there’s guns in a home would warrant some further conversation with the parents and child” said Alison Scott, executive director of Family and Children’s Services..read more...
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U.S. water bills to triple
According to the American Water Works Association, Americans should expect their bills to double or triple to cover repairs just to keep their faucets pouring. Families can expect to pay at least $300-$550 more for water in taxes and fees just to keep their current systems operating. Add growth and improved systems, and that bill jumps to $900 for a family of three, nearly equal the amount of...
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Wiki Leaks claims Israel/Kurdish fighters...
Hacked emails report that Israeli commandos, in cooperation with Kurdish fighters, have destroyed Iranian nuclear installations. The group said that it had obtained over five million emails generated by the Stratfor headquarters. Including an email which claims “the Israelis already destroyed all the Iranian nuclear infrastructure on the ground weeks ago”..read more @ Haaretz
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Ex-cop robs bank for health benefits in prison
A former Columbus police officer who served as a Columbus policeman for 15 years admitted in court that he robbed a bank last year so he can get health benefits being in a federal prison. Pascucci served in the Marines, Army and Army Reserve before becoming a police officer in 1989…read more @ Daily mail
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How the U.S. Could Pressure North Korea Tomorrow
U.S. negotiators are heading into a second day of what have been dubbed “serious and substantial” talks with North Korean officials..fake greenbacks the U.S. Secret Service has dubbed “super dollars.” These ultra-counterfeits are light years beyond the weak facsimiles produced by most forgers, who use desktop printers. As an anti-counterfeiting investigator with Europol...
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35,000 Postal Service jobs at risk
The U.S. Postal Service announced on Thursday new plans to consolidate or close 223 mail processing plants, putting 35,000 jobs at stake starting in late May or June. Not all of the workers affected by the plant closings will lose their jobs. Many will be offered posts at other processing plants miles away or even in other states. Some will be urged to retire. The Postal Service says that it...
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Mall Crowd Riots Over Glow In The Dark Nikes
More than 100 sheriff’s deputies in riot gear broke up an out-of-control crowd waiting outside a mall to buy a limited edition Nike basketball shoe. Crowds began to gather outside a Foot Locker Wednesday night ahead of the shoe’s release but were initially kept a fair distance from the store entrance. At some point, however, one person ducked the cordon and broke for the store....
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Arab nations arming Syrian opposition
A number of Arab nations are supplying arms to the Syrian opposition. ”There will be increasingly capable opposition forces,” she said Thursday. Hillary Clinton - ”They will find somewhere, somehow the means to defend themselves, as well as begin offensive measures and the pressure will build on Russia and China. World opinion is not going to stand idly by.” - Turkish...
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Two U.S. Troops Shot Dead Over Koran Burning in...
An Afghan soldier shot dead two American soldiers , as the Taliban called for attacks on military bases and convoys in retaliation for the burning of copies of the Qur’an. The violence began when Afghan workers at the Bagram airbase discovered copies of the Qur’an among a pile of waste paper sent for incineration late on Monday evening, and pulled them from the flames…read more...
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CHINA PREPARING FOR SPACE WARFARE
In 2007 China anti-satellite missile test involved a modified DF-21 missile that destroyed a Chinese weather satellite. The blast created a debris field in space of some 10,000 pieces of space junk that could damage both manned and unmanned spacecraft. The successful ASAT test represented a new strategic capability for China. Analysts estimate that with as many as two-dozen ASAT missiles, China...
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US farmers enraged after Iraq stops buying US rice
Iraq imports most of its rice, about 1 million metric tons per year, making it a significant player in the global market. But in the past decade, about ten to fifteen percent came from the United States. Iraq has not bought any U.S. produced rice since late 2010, buying instead from Asia and South America. It also recently lowered its quality standards so that it would be able to buy rice from...
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Cost of Gas Jump 10 Cents During News Broadcast
As ABC News’ Cecilia Vega introduced her piece on high gas prices, the sign at the downtown Los Angeles gas station behind her showed the price of regular gas at $4.99 a gallon. However when the piece concluded nearly two minutes later the price of regular gas had jumped 10 cents to $5.09 a gallon…read more @ ABC News
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Data Mining: Target knows if you are pregnant
One Target employee I spoke to provided a hypothetical example. Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug. There’s, say, an 87 percent chance that she’s pregnant and that her delivery date is sometime in late...
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Nearly $6 A Gallon At Some Gas Stations
Some Florida drivers are spending nearly $6 a gallon to fill up their gas tanks. According to GasBuddy.com, motorists are shelling out $5.89 for a gallon of regular gas at a Shell station in Lake Buena Vista, topping out at $5.99 a gallon for premium. It doesn’t get better at a Suncoast Energy station in Orlando, where drivers are paying $5.79 for a gallon of regular…read more @ CBS...
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At least 40 dead, 550 injured in Argentina train...
At least 550 people were injured when a train plowed into a platform at a Buenos Aires station Wednesday, an emergency official said. About 30 people remained trapped hours after the crash, emergency services director Alberto Crescenti said. Transportation Secretary Juan Pablo Schiavi called the crash “very serious” and said there may be deaths…read more @ Alert Net
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Four killed, many wounded in Afghan Koran protests
Four people were shot dead and dozens wounded in protests in Afghanistan which flared for a second day on Wednesday in several cities over the burning of copies of the Koran, Islam’s holy book, at NATO’s main base in the country, officials said. The American Embassy said its staff were in “lockdown” and travel had been suspended as thousands of people expressed fury over...
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Alleged Iran Bombs Hidden in $27 Radio
An alleged Iranian hit squad used $27 portable radios to hide at least five bombs that Israeli and American authorities say they intended to use against Israeli targets in Bangkok, Thailand. According to authorities, a bomb exploded in the Bangkok house where Moradi and two other Iranians had been staying. After the blast, Moradi attempted to hail a cab. When the driver refused to pick him up, he...
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Large U.S. base in Afghanistan "BESIEGED"
Protesters firing petrol bombs and slingshots besieged the largest US-run military base in Afghanistan last night after the inadvertent burning of the Koran and other Islamic religious material during the disposal of rubbish at Bagram. The enraged crowd shouted “Death to Americans” and “Death to infidels” as guards at Bagram airbase, north of Kabul, responded by firing...
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Japan offers to enrich uranium for Iran
The Nikkei daily, without citing sources, reported that the proposal for Japan to enrich uranium for Iran was floated in December, with US approval, when Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili visited Tokyo. Japan, the only country to have been attacked with atomic bombs, has strongly supported efforts for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament…read more @ The New...
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UK government to demand access to all phone and...
British government is in the process of developing a scheme whereby all phone companies and broadband internet providers will be required to store customer transaction data for a year and hand it over to security services upon request.Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) is already being attacked by privacy advocates as offering a license for abuse and as raising the “Big...
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44 killed in Mexico prison riot; guards detained
A fierce rivalry between drug cartels likely fueled the fighting that killed 44 people Sunday inside the prison in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon, state security spokesman Jorge Domene told reporters. Prisoners could have used the riot to engineer their breakout, Domene said Sunday. He did not say how prisoners inside acquired the clubs, stones and sharp objects they used in the fighting…read more @...
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Oil hits 8-month highs of $120 per barrel in...
Brent oil prices hit an eight-month high on Friday, driven by simmering geopolitical tensions over key crude producer Iran and optimism the Greek debt crisis can be resolved..The market also gained ground on continued tension between Western powers and Iran, as well as positive economic data from the United States, analysts said…Iran has denied reports of an immediate ban on oil shipments...
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Military Trained Gang Members Worry FBI, Oklahoma...
As the war ends, gang member soldiers come home and are tougher to take down because of their weapons and combat training—training we paid for. Gang members in the military are tagging their gang affiliation on Humvees and walls overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan..gang members leave the military and come home, they share what they’ve learned about weapons and takedown tactics with their...
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Blind, Legless, Matrix Style Vertical Chicken...
Chickens blinded by “accident” have been developed into a strain of laboratory chickens that don’t mind being crowded together as much as normal chickens do..the chickens could then be stacked into huge urban farms with around 1,000 chickens hooked up to large vertical frames — a little like the network of pods the humans are connected to in The Matrix. The feet of the chickens would also be...
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Hundreds killed in fire at prison in Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Trapped inmates screamed from their cells as a fire swept through a Honduran prison, killing at least 300 inmates, authorities said Wednesday. Lucy Marder, chief of forensic medicine for the prosecutor’s office, said early Wednesday some 356 people on the prison roster are unaccounted for among 852 prisoners. “The majority could be dead, though others...
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Marine Sgt. Manuel Loggins Killed by the police,...
Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr. was shot early Tuesday as he started to get into the SUV where his two daughters — 9 and 14 — were sitting, authorities said. Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the department, said the deputy was fearful that Loggins — who he said appeared to be acting irrationally — was about to drive off with the girls. ”The real threat that was perceived was...
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How dogs are becoming addicted to digital TV
Dogs in the UK watch almost an hour of TV every day, according to new research. Experts say the number of canines addicted to television is set to rise as the nation continues to make the switch from analogue to digital - because the clearer picture is easier for dogs to watch. The average British dog is happy to sit for 50 minutes each day in front of their favourite shows and many get excited...
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Iran Will Cut Oil to 6 European Nations
Iran struck back against a European oil embargo by cutting supplies to six European countries Wednesday as state media in Tehran said that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was being briefed “on new nuclear achievements” expected to be announced later in the day. The oil cutoff affects the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Portugal…read more @ NY Times
Original Article
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Three explosions shake Bangkok; Iranian link...
Three explosions reportedly linked to Iranian nationals rattled downtown Bangkok on Tuesday, a day after an Israeli diplomatic vehicle was bombed in India in an attack that Israel attributed to Iran. Four Thai nationals were reportedly injured slightly in the Bangkok blasts, according to authorities. According to Bangkok Police Deputy Commissioner Pisit Pisutsak, a bomb exploded in a house rented...
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GET READY FOR $5 GAS...
American motorists have seen the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline rise above $3.50 a gallon on just three occasions, but it has never happened this early in the year. Analysts say it’s likely a sign that pain at the pump will rise to some of the highest levels ever seen later this year. In 2008, average gasoline prices had hit inflation-adjusted records nationally by the...
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Greece's GDP In Freefall - Athens Street Damage...
Greece is devolving into something unprecedented in modern Western experience. A quarter of all Greek companies have gone out of business since 2009, and half of all small businesses in the country say they are unable to meet payroll. The suicide rate increased by 40 percent in the first half of 2011. A barter economy has sprung up, as people try to work around a broken financial system. Nearly...
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ISRAEL: IRAN TARGETING OUR DIPLOMATS
The wife of an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi and her driver were injured on Monday when the car they were traveling in was bombed, officials said. A second attempted bombing was defused outside the Israeli embassy in Tblisi, Georgia, at about the same time. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately blamed Iran, which...
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LAPD SETS UP DOMESTIC 'WAR ROOM'
The LAPD is fighting crime from a high-tech war room that gives it eyes all over the city. The surveillance hub is now a model for police forces around the world and KCAL9 got an exclusive tour inside from Chief Charlie Beck. “We are targets on our own soil,” says Beck. “We have to be ready.” What began as a grass roots idea following the 9/11 terrorist attacks is now a state-of-the-art real-time...
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Beef prices expected to climb for next 2 years
The smallest cattle herd since the 1950s likely will mean higher beef prices at the supermarket for the next two years. Experts said beef prices could climb as much as 10 percent a year in 2012 and 2013, and the increase could be even greater if demand from other countries increases. Those higher prices would follow steady increases that have seen the average retail cost of a pound of hamburger...
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Increased Possibility of a Sudden Fiscal Crisis
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the current trajectory of the federal budget – marked by large annual deficits – was “clearly unsustainable” and that “serious economic consequences” could result. “Having a large and increasing level of government debt relative to national income runs the risk of serious economic consequences,” Bernanke told the Senate Budget Committee...
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Postal Service Warns of Possible Shutdown This...
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe says that at the current rate of loss, the agency will completely run out of money by October 2012. He is a warning of a possible suspension in postal operations this fall unless Congress acts to address long-term money problems. He wants the authority to eliminate Saturday mail delivery, raise stamp prices and reduce health and other labor costs…read more...
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PepsiCo To Cut 8,700 Jobs
PepsiCo Inc expects to cut 8,700 jobs as part of a plan to save an extra $1.5 billion over the next three years, as it pours more money into its brands. Its shares fell 1.1 percent to $66 in premarket trading from Wednesday’s close of $66.74 on the New York Stock exchange. PepsiCo, maker of Sierra Mist soda, Tropicana juice and Gatorade sports drink, also reported better-than-expected...
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Devalue The Dollar 33%
After its latest two day meeting, it announced its goal to devalue the dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The debauch of the dollar will be even greater if the Fed exceeds its goal of a 2 percent per year increase in the price level. An increase in the price level of 2% in any one year is barely noticeable. Under a gold standard, such an increase was uncommon, but not unknown. The...
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Top Iran military official aiding Assad's...
A top Iranian military official is activily aiding the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad in suppressing popular unrest throughout the country, a top member of the National Syrian Council said on Monday. According to the Syrian official, Kassam Salimani, commander of the Quds Force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard special forces unit, has arrived in Syria recently and has taken up a spot in...
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Pakistan blasts US blitz
PAKISTAN yesterday warned Britain to help stop the American “Drone Wars” that are slaughtering hundreds of its innocent civilians. The nuclear power chillingly declared it “has the means” to retaliate unless the carnage ceases. Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Britain Wajid Shamsul Hasan told The Sun in an exclusive interview that his country’s relations with...
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Iran's Middle Class on Edge as World Presses In
Iran - The government has raised the official exchange rate and sent police into the streets to stop the black marketeers, but with confidence in Iran’s own currency, the rial, collapsing by the day, the trade goes on. ”Am I afraid of the police? Sure, but I need the money,” said Hamid, a heavyset construction engineer who was standing by a muddy patch of greenery amid a crowd...
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